MERCEDES E270CDI - Rock chip repair

MERCEDES E 270 CDI - 2004 mod



Got a mail and phonecall from Swissvax Norway. They wanted me to take a job on one of their customers car, which I agreed to do.
The car was a Obsidian black metallic Mercedes with all the right accessories. The Merc was purchased from Mercedes June this year and the dealer had performed some kind of repair on the hood with a some non-matching laquer.. Crappy job.. The car had also received a polish-treatment from a local shop called Dr.Wax. I'm not commenting on that.:applause2:
The owner wanted a new Swissvax treatement so here it goes..

The initial plan for this car was two stage polish, laquer filling of some spots inside the door and one scratch and SV LSP.

Process:

Washi-washi:
GritGuard
Mothers wool glove, SV wash pudel and Scholl square washing-wool-thing.
Foam Cannon
Scholl crack 9000
Maxi Suds II
GR 1:2 i motorrom
SS og Guzler waffle
CG sticky wheel gel
Grime reaper
Guzzler Waffle
SS dryers
HP

Engine:
GR 1:2

MF
A lot.. All shapes and sizes.

Clay:
SS Blue, good shit.

Tires:
SV Pneu non-glossy

Machines:
Makita 9227 rotary
Flex 3403VRG rotary

Plastic parts:
Black wow

Rock chips:
Motip Siliconremover
Special ordered laquer, one with primer/base/clear ready mixed and one with base/clear.
Hair dryer
Laquer particle protection mask
Lots of good lighting

Paint treatment:
Scholl S02/03
Scholl S30

Rims:
CG Sticky wheel gel and "Vikan" brush
SV Autobahn

Glass:
Nanolotus PRO all around

LSP:
CFP
SV Endurance and SV Insignis

Wetsanding:
3M mini 9MY sander

Time spent:
Friday: 6 hrs
Saturday: 8 hrs
Sunday: 10 hrs


DAY 1

The plan for day one was just wash, clay, masking and filling of some laquer defects.

Dirty upon delivery.. Just the way we like it


Plenty of breakdust and dirt:














Some of the washing equipment:


First a little Grime Reaper:


Used plenty of ValetPro Orange pre wash:


GR for the engine compartement and Crack for the paintwork:


Crack 9000:


Panels sprayed down with crack9000:




Let the crack stand for aprox 5 minutes before........


Foaming:




















Aufsphyling:


FM radio:


Two buckets with Maxi Suds II:


a light mixture of Maxi Suds in the cannon:




Nice and heavy foam:


Scrubed the tires.. Rims was brushed with "Vikan" brush making me look like a chimney sweeper after a little while:afro: :


Clay with Megs as lube:


Can conclude that crack and washing cleaned the car up nicely:


Then out for some swirlhunting:








A handfull to take here:


Found a spot on the right light that was missing clearcoat.. There was polish residue on the light indicating that this could come from the polish the car received this summer.. hmmmm.. no good:


The clock was running away from me now on day 1, but decided to fill some rockchips before calling the night. The colour the delership had used looked like a grey colour and since the laquer I had ordered was such a good match I decided to undo them all... Stupid me, gonna regret that tomorrow:crasy: :


This was what we had agreed to do:


and this one:

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

DAY 2

After filling rockchips, wetsanding is obligatory.. Used the 3M 9MY sander to take the "blob."


Sanded both ways here:


Not enough, so sanded some more... Not happy since it left a small hole:


Used 3M Control spary as lube. If I spray on to much I normally just drag a finger across to get the substance clear. To much lube just makes the sandingpaper loosen from the sander:


Not to bad:


Did about 30-40 of these ones:


Had to aply shitloads of pressure to get any effect, and this was a headsup for what to come....:


Happy with this one:


Another:


Another good one:


Then over to the chip underneath Dr.Wax :


Also found something behind Dr.Sticker:yikes: :


Again on with some rockchip equipment.. After doing a VW Passat earlier this summer I had bought a particle mask to prevent the headache I got after that job:


Got the cameray rigged up on a stand with remote. Helpes when you don't have a photographer avaliable:


Filling some schraches:




The brush used here is bought from a local carlaquer specialist. The best stuff I've used so far:


Used ready mixed paint with primer on this one:




Done:


Looked like this then:


Was a couple of places that I had overlooked, so had to tend to them to:


And this is were the weekend beautiful adventure begins:


Mercedes ceramic clear is rock hard.. Had to apply crazy pressure, and it was not before the temperature the swirls started to disapear. After a little testing back and forth the choice of polish ended on Scholl S02 and S03+:


HARD - HARD - HARD - HARD PAINT!!!!
The following was tested:
3M FCP on green pad - close to nothing.
S02 on blue scholl pad - nothing before applying the entire bodyweight behind the makita.
S03 on yellow pad - Same as above, but much less machinemarks. Had to do three rounds to get the wetsanded ares good... ridiculous:
Also tried S03+ with MG Solo Heavy-cut wool pad... LOL.... The cut was good, but left to much tracks behind after my standards:

Had to to many passes with the non-diminishing Scholl to get this results.. Should might have tried Menz SIP here...:


Had to do two hard rounds to get some 50/50 pics:


Used blue detailersdomain pad and S30 with the Flex to get remove the holo's on the 50/50. Used Scholl CF02 to wipe it down:


Enjoy:


Still some left:


As mentioned above, I had to put my entire bodyweight behind the machine.. Spread for a couple of passes, straight up to 2000rpm with S03+, and working on small areas:


The new yellow scholl pad is fantastic to work with. Simular cut as the blue one, but does not dissolve as the blue one has a tendency to do:


Using my chin to get more pressure:






Over to the other side:




Worked on aprox this size areas:




Plenty of pressure again:


Doing around ten passes here.. Over double what I use to use with scholl:




Started to get tired so I felt like doing some motivating 50/50 pics.. You know you're applying sufficient pressure when you get panel "popping" on the lower panels :




Got to love 50/50:


S30 and blue DM pads did the trick on the holo's:


Did the the hood before call it a night:




Had to do another round here tomorrow.. Holo's right behind the Merc-star. Just polish residue on the left side of the pic:


Further up looks good and LSP-ready:


Then some final pics:



















__________________________________________________________________________________________________

DAY 3

Started the day doing the rest of the correction-work. Here from the sidemirrors:








Potential for improvement:


Used the Flex and S03 on blue pad on this small areas:


Spred the polish on 1100rpm and straight up to 1500 doing 4 passes:


+ one pass:


Some improvement:


Not yet polished with S30:


C-pilar:


Not happy yet:


Did one more round:


Had a friend visiting that took some pics:


Front bumper with S03+ on blue:




Did two rounds here(2 x 4 passes):




Pleased with the results:


Gloss-polished with some residue left This is from three rounds with S03+.. Not able to get 100% on this paint for this time... Hate it, but did not have much more time:








IPA wipedown and 3M controll spray to loosen up in tight areas.. Worked very well:












Very happy with the hood:






Hate not to get it all away, but the car is coming back in the spring so will se what I can do then:


Then it was CleanerFluid Pro at 1500rpm.

Todays wax.. The hood got SV Insignis and the rest got SV Endurance...

The owner was given a sheeting&beading demo upon pickup, and he was stunned..

Then some final shoots:


















Love SV Insignis:


Happy detailer:








That was it:



Did about 300 PTG measurements, and did the average which is the results you see in the excel document.


Thanks for watching!!

 

A very nice job, well done! Looks like a lot of work went into this one!

 

Damn that was thorough, excellent work on making that black look deep.

 

Looks great!

Can't wait till I do my first Ceramic Clear...

 

very impressive work, and also some nice photography with the d90

the rock chip repair pictures look pretty funny haha

 

damn dude this is some serious work, nice job

 

Thanks for the comments

kustomizingkid:
I dont envy you Ceramic clear... It's a pain to work with....

SpecC:
You can tel that's it a D90? Impressive
Have only had this camera for about 6 months now, but the pics is getting better and better I think..

 

Nice looking one!
Very impressive!

 

Excellent job there . Came out great

 

Awesome job man! :thumb::thumb:

 

Great work, thanks for the in-depth pictures, and amazing results congrat's

 

Great Job! Thanks for posting! :mounty:

 

I got curious and looked at your exif data, haha. I had a D200, but I've sold it to move to Canon. I was going to try to do what you did with the external flash to expose swirls. Someone on another forum told me to point it directly at a white wall behind me to see if that works too. I'll be without a flash with the 5D though.

 

Very extensive and great work!

 

Well done vehicle turned out great :thumb:

 

great work, man!!

 

Wow, a lot of work and great result. Way to go. It's amazing even as hard as merc clear is supposed to be that it can get that swirled!?!

 

Thanks for the very nice comments, guys..

Appreciate it

 

Amazing work, dude! Seriously, that's a lot of work! Well done! :thumb::thumb:

 

Thanks a lot supercharged and Fahrenheit

It's better to use earprotection vs non, yes... especially when you have a radio on them.. When I work with my Makita it's not to bad, but the Flex makes to much noise, and there is no point not to use, if you're doing several hrs of correctionwork..

I normally taka a lot of pictures when I detail, and hope you don't mind.. It's not all of them that is of high quality, but it "tells" so much more when you have a lot of them